IN FEBRUARY, he looks into a mirror for the first time.
It’s both better and worse than he thought it would be. He doesn’t have a full beard; they shaved it after he was beaten within an inch of his life. It is easier upkeep, he was told by one of the nurses a couple of weeks after he’d woken. “You can’t see sores or lesions if they’re covered by a beard,” she said with a wink.
But it’s growing back now, even if it’s coming in in patches. There are dark circles under his eyes, bruised blue and purple. He’s still skinny, far skinnier than he’s ever been as an adult, but he doesn’t have the g-tube in his stomach anymore and is working his way up to more solid foods.
The rest of his head, though.
It’s terrifying.
His hair is much like his beard in that it’s growing back in patches, some of it brown, some of it auburn. It does nothing to hide the scars, and he doubts it ever will. They crisscross over his scalp, a roadmap describing the brutality of what happened that day in the prison showers, a stark reminder of an event he wishes he could not remember. The large scar, across the side of his head where the crack in his skull was the biggest, is white and raised, its ridges bumpy and puckered. The rest are jagged, like his skin was sliced with a small blade. There’s a single scar on his cheek, an inch or two in length, curling around his nose. His neck is similarly marked on the left side. The right is almost unblemished, like he was on his side while the blows came down on him, curled up to try and protect as much as he could.
They had to remove a testicle. He was told this the day the catheter was taken out. One had been squashed beyond repair. He limps, given the damage to his legs and knees, and probably always will, even if he gains even half of his former strength back. Which, as it turns out, he might. Being frozen apparently slowed the body’s degradation, preventing muscles from becoming more atrophied than they were.
I’m alive, he thinks.
He stares at his reflection. He sees the cracks within himself lying just near the surface.
His eyes are dull and lifeless. He looks haunted.
I’m alive, he thinks again.
In Amorea, I could be—
He stops himself before the thought completes.
DR. KING says, “You look well. Better, even. Like you’re healing.”
He grins
at her and thinks, What do you know about schizophrenia?
HE DREAMS about being Mike. About living in Amorea. He’s not sure whether these are memories or desires, but he’s walking down Main Street and he’s saying hello and good morning to everyone he passes. Everyone is happy to see him. He goes into a diner (the diner, he thinks) and people shout out his name as a bell rings out overhead. They wave at him, and he smiles back, and there’s three guys sitting at a lunch counter. One is a rapist, another makes dirty bathtub meth that explodes and kills children, and another’s dog ate his toes as he lay on the floor of his apartment, face slack, drool running down his cheek, pants filled with piss and shit, kiddie porn locked away in a safe. A man behind the grill waves at him, flipping eggs and bacon like he’s never robbed a store and then been run over by the karma train.
And there’s one more person there. One more person, and he gives him a just-for—
Mike
—Greg smile and it’s warm, and inviting, and everything he could ever want. His heart trips all over itself, and he doesn’t even think about the track marks that should be running up and down the crook of his elbow or between his toes. He doesn’t think about this guy on his knees in dirty jeans, sucking off some out-of-town businessman in Detroit for a conference for ten bucks, that if he can do three more in the next four hours, he’ll have enough for his next fix. He doesn’t think about him parked under that overpass, needle stuck in his arm, choking on his own vomit, a mixture of bile and a day-old plain hamburger he’d gotten for fifty cents at some hole-in-the-wall burger shack.
He says, “Hey, big guy.”
Greg/Mike says, “Hey.” That one word sounds so fond that he’s almost embarrassed for himself.
Sean’s lips twitch, like he knows what Greg/Mike is thinking. “You good?”
“Yeah,” he says.
“Yeah,” Sean says, like it’s a joke, like it’s a secret just between them.
“DO PEOPLE ever get sick in Amorea?” he asks Dr. Hester.
“No,” Dr. Hester says. He sounds like he’s choosing his words carefully. “Not really. Nothing major. Nothing that can’t be fixed. Or controlled. Like migraines.”
“Huh,” Greg says, but he’s distracted, because in his dream last night, Sean kissed his cheek. He can almost feel the warmth of him standing so close.
“Why do you ask?”
Greg says, “Just thinking out loud.”